


all that counts is here and now

by vanishedSchism



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Freeform, M/M, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-10 23:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10450164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanishedSchism/pseuds/vanishedSchism
Summary: Agent Washington has had a hard life. Sometimes its difficult to separate the memories from the facts. Sometimes there isn't a difference anyway.A remix fic for ZaliaChimera





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZaliaChimera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Temperate Zone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8742952) by [ZaliaChimera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera). 



Everything was covered in snow. 

_I'm inside a ship,_ Wash thought, _there shouldn't be snow here._

There shouldn't really be snow anywhere, it was cold and unpleasant and somehow always managed to get past your helmet, but that was neither here nor there. 

He was inside. Even if the halls were spinning and he felt an ache at the back of his head, like someone had reached in and just ripped out a section of his brain, there shouldn't be snow here. Cold maybe, but the snow...

Unless there was a reason for it. 

He tried to turn around and instead lost his balance and fell to the hard, cold cold floor. 

He groaned and perhaps most unsettling of all, the sound echoed. There was no one else here. 

"What?" 

He had expected someone to reply, though he didn't know why. He'd just established that he was alone.

Falling had helped in an odd way though because now he was facing the gap in the wall that the snow was pouring through. 

It wasn't really fair to call it a gap. It was more like the wall just wasn't there. 

_Like the back of my head_ , Wash thought, with a wry sort of humor that he knew should worry him. 

He could see something beyond the snow. A figure in a fighting stance, a flash of turquoise that skidded toward the edge of a cliff and a bright white figure that stalked toward her. 

_Carolina_. 

And Maine. 

And Maine's hands encircling Carolina's throat. 

Wash jumped up and started to run toward them. 

"Maine!" he screamed as he sunk into the snow and the entire world spun. 

"Maine!" he had the sinking realization that he wasn't going going to get there in time, wouldn't be able to do _anything_ and fell to his knees. 

“Maine...”

\------

Maine’s hand was on his shoulder, but it was Sigma’s voice that penetrated the dazed fog Wash’s thoughts had become. 

"Stay with me," Sigma said, looking surprised as the words left his mouth. Wash smiled. Leave it to Maine to surprise an AI that was literally inside his head. 

Wash began to laugh at the absurdity of it, the giggles bubbling out of him until he couldn't suppress them and he shook against the cold wall. AIs were supposed to know everything, weren't they? That's why York and Wyoming were so high up on the leaderboard. But course they couldn't know how much Maine cared, how soft he really was, they were fragments after all. Most people couldn't even figure that one out. 

He kept laughing, hard enough to make himself dizzy. He vaguely registered Maine's hands on his shoulders, warm even through the layers of armor and fabric between them, but it wasn't enough to ground him. That sort of comfort didn't belong in his world. 

Time stretched on, with Maine's warm hands on his shoulders and the ground spinning around him, and the cold seeping into his bones. 

Maine grunted, bringing him back when he drifted. Stay awake. 

"'S cold..."

Maine looked at him for a long time, so long that Sigma started fidget, unsure whether he should be translating Maine's thoughts or not. Before he could make up his mind though, Maine moved, settling himself down next to Wash and then carefully pulling him into his lap.

"You have a concussion," Sigma reminded him sternly once he was settled. Maine comforted him, in his own special way. 

_You’re an idiot. Next time wait._

\------

Wait for it. Wait for it…

As nice as it was to see York flat on his ass after that comment, he did actually have a job to do here. And he wasn’t going to Washington it. This time, while Carolina was wrestling a tank, he was going to valuable to the team.

He activated the beacon. 

Not three seconds later, their salvation dropped out of the sky. 

Maine, like a knight in white armor, stepped onto the battlefield as the pod opened with a hydraulic hiss. As he surveyed the battlefield, Wash found himself thinking how glad he was that Maine was his friend. He almost pitied the Insurrectionists. 

Especially once Sigma appeared on Maine’s shoulder. 

"Agent Maine," he said, holding his hands behind his back in the same way the- no he didn't know that yet- "-the soldier from the freeway?" he continued. His next words rang in Wash's ears echoing and compounding over each other as his chest grew tighter and tighter. "The one that shot you in the throat?" Sigma was saying, as Maine slowly nodded and Wash found it harder and harder to breathe. He'd brought him here, but for what, to be used? Like Sigma was using him? He was using his- he was using Maine as a weapon, he hadn't even thought about it, he should have done, have done, he wished he could have done something. 

But he didn't. 

He summoned Maine, put him in this position. 

He watched, useless, as Maine stalked forward. 

He asked for this. He brought him here.

"I thought so."

\------

So this was how it was going to play out. Wash had hoped for more cooperation, but he wasn't surprised that he hadn't gotten it. 

Had anyone ever just fucking cooperated with him?

 _No_ , he thought bitterly as he glared at the aliens' crude drawing.

"Peace talks have broken down," he said, his voice harder than he would have expected. But he was pissed, these aliens were just like the sim troopers, purposefully dense and doing nothing but getting in his way, why _wouldn't_ he be inconvenienced at every fucking turn? He was once again reminded, as he often was, that he was far too idealistic and life was, in fact, a steaming pile of shit. 

He sighed. At least he could deal with one of these problems. He looked at Maine. Time to get rid of the useless doctor. 

Missiles succeeded where Maine's strength hadn't. The block of concrete practically dissolved around their prisoner. 

Wash would not be at all surprised if he found out the guy pissed his pants. 

To his credit though, he didn't run. Wash would have, in his shoes. He would have turned and booked it, to get as far away from the merc and his crazy friend as possible. 

They'd tortured that man, and now he was free. 

Wash paused, the sounds of fresh tearing from bone and aliens screaming briefly halting his thoughts. 

He'd done the same, hadn't he? 

He and the Meta both. They'd been released, free from their prison and torture, and what did they do? They failed to run. He stood still until he was once more in the Director's hands. He grit his teeth. 

He hadn't run. 

Just like this stupid, _pacifist_ doctor, who supposedly only wanted to help people. He didn't run either, he just stood there, in sand that went up to his ankles and surrounded by debris that he'd been trapped in for god knows how long. 

And all he said was, "I want to go home."

\------

Home, his sister once told him, is where the heart is. He didn't understand it at the time, though he felt strangely empty as he watched her climb into the waiting ship. 

He hugged himself and shivered in the sudden cold. 

He thought he was beginning to understand it now, as he concentrated on the tiny brush he was holding, his tongue stuck ever so slightly out as he brushed the black polish over Maine's nails. 

She must have been talking about something like this, the easy comfort between two people, the close room and not actually comfortable bed but that's okay because there's a warm body he can trust right next to him and he just leans on Maine for a bit and enjoys that. 

They must have gotten comfortable because Maine grunted when Wash finally found it in him to continue the night's activity and actually stood up.

_This is a waste of time._

"Shh," Wash said, a smile playing on his lips. "It'll be worth it. Besides, it's not like we're doing anything else tonight." 

Maine gave him a look that expressed exactly what (and who) he'd _like_ to be doing tonight but Wash just darted in with a quick peck on the corner of his lips before moving out of reach. "After they dry," he tossed over his shoulder, as he walked toward his nightstand. There were two more layers, the glitter, white as Maine's armor, that would stand out like stars against the black background, and clear varnish to protect it all. 

He was flooded with the sudden desire to protect Maine himself.

 _Absurd_ , he told himself immediately. He was the rookie, one of the worst soldiers left in the program. What was he going to do to protect _Maine?_

Maine, who could crush a man's head with his hands. 

Maine, who charged like a bull through the battlefield but was oh so gentle with Wash. 

Maine, who was currently concentrating on slowly moving his hand, watching how the nail polish caught and reflected the light. 

Maybe there was something Wash could protect. Whatever it was that made a voice inside Wash say _this is home_ when he looked at Maine. Home had never made him feel warm before, but, he supposed, there was a first time for everything. 

He knew from experience that Maine made a good first. 

Wash smiled as Maine patted the bed next to him. His voice was soft and inviting and promised smudged nail polish in the morning. 

"Come here."

\------

Here wasn't going to be the place where he died, but it seemed like as a good a place as any to give up. 

It would be so simple to just lie in the snow, let the cold seep into his aching bones and forget about everything but his injuries for a bit. 

The Meta would kill these sim troopers and then....

He'd go back to jail. 

Or maybe there was enough of Maine left to kill him and spare him that fate. Or maybe he'd finally push the Meta far enough. 

Either option seemed fine, though, as a somewhat tactical man, Wash had to acknowledge that he'd achieve his goals much faster if he just got up and fought the Meta now. 

His injuries weren't bad enough to prevent him from standing (mostly, he was having some trouble breathing) but they'd definitely slow him down. 

But he didn't want to fight. He was tired. He'd been doing this since... longer than he cared to remember. Didn't he deserve a rest? 

Someone was yelling at him. Red, they were definitely red. 

"Here, take this!" 

"I... can't," Wash said, feeling the truth of it in the ache of his bones, the wheeze of his breath and the cold in his chest. 

He couldn't. He was done. Without the memory unit, and really, if he was being truthful, without Maine, he had lost everything.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been itching to write MaineWash in a relatively canon space for a while, and Zalia's fic gave me the perfect opportunity. I tried something pretty different from my usual style with this one, and it definitely challenged me, but I also had fun writing it. Let me know if you think I pulled it off!
> 
> I hope you enjoy Zalia ::)


End file.
